Original subtitles

NARRATOR: It has been called the key to the universe.

WOMAN: We are just discovering something

which is completely blowing our minds.

NARRATOR: A gateway to new technologies.

MAN: We're going into vast unknown territory.

Who knows what we'll find?

NARRATOR: And possibly the most important

scientific breakthrough of all time.

MAN: It's gonna open up new layers

of our understanding of reality.

NARRATOR: Could the so-called God particle

really reveal the truth about our origins?

And might clues to its significance

have been left here on Earth thousands of years ago

by extraterrestrial beings?

MAN: We can use this

to understand our place in the universe

and even to teleport and travel through time and space.

NARRATOR: Millions of people around the world

believe we have been visited in the past

by extraterrestrial beings.

What if it were true?

Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history?

And if so, might there be evidence

in the discovery of the God particle?

Every religion seeks to answer the same question:

"Where did we come from?"

Philosophers, sages and priests have pondered our origins

since the dawn of humanity,

while science has looked for evidence

that might one day give us the answer.

Both religion and science approach the idea

of where we come from with a set of rules.

Science has the scientific method.

Religion comes at the same question

with its own set of rules...

A presupposition that a god or gods exist.

Religion gives us a certain view of reality,

and science gives us a different view of reality.

And yes, there are points

at which these two world-views are compatible.

Science and religion, at their best moments,

are searching for truth, as is philosophy.

Especially at moments like the moment of the big bang,

the moment of creation, the genesis,

these streams of thought converge.

In effect, science and religion and philosophy

are all searching for the same thing.

It reminds me of Einstein's question:

"What were God's thoughts when he was making the universe?"

NARRATOR: If science and religion

are both searching for answers to the same questions,

then why do we so often consider them at odds?

Is it necessary that one negates the other?

Science speaks nothing whatsoever

about the existence of God.

And because of that,

there's still an opening for God, right?

There's still a possibility that God stands behind all this,

that God's responsible for the big bang.

MAN: In the ancient world,

the philosophers were the scientists.

There was no clear distinction between hard research

and theological speculations.

All serious thinkers were trying to figure out

the nature of reality.

Now we consider these to be separate pursuits.

MAN: If we truly want to bridge the gap

between religion and science,

we must recognize that religion needs to become more scientific.

And science would benefit

by becoming a wee bit more religious...

Not in the mythological sense,

but by looking back to the religious

and "what they interpret to be myth,"

and say, "if there's any legitimacy"

"or reality to this, what is it?"

"Let's explore. Let's discover."

"Let's find out what the truth is."

NARRATOR: As our technology advances

at an increasingly rapid rate,

are we getting closer to discovering our true origins?

And finding out whether or not

we really are alone in the universe?

Some believe a recent scientific breakthrough

may prove to be a giant leap forward

in our search for the truth.

Geneva, Switzerland.

Here, buried over 300 feet beneath the earth

and covering a remarkable 17-mile expanse,

is the largest and most complex machine ever created:

The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC.

Smashing tiny protons together

at speeds of nearly 670 million miles per hour,

the LHC creates such intense energy

that some people are afraid

it could actually create a black hole

and swallow up the entire earth.

The Large Hadron Collider

is a real triumph of human civilization,

and it's easily the most complicated and powerful device

that the human beings have ever built.

You're actually firing 2 protons into each other

and having them collide with an enormous release of energy,

re-creating conditions in a very small area

similar to the big bang in its very earliest instant.

It is a bit like going back in time

towards the big bang or the beginning of the universe,

getting to points in the history of the universe

where the energies were that high.

NARRATOR: On July 4, 2012,

thousands crowded outside an auditorium

at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN,

to hear the announcement of the LHC's first major finding.

Streaming the event live across the world,

scientists prepared to reveal a discovery

that could solve a decades-old mystery

about the nature of our universe.

The atmosphere in the room was, uh, was incredible.

It was not like a normal physics symposium or seminar.

It was truly something of completely different magnitude

was going to be announced,

that it is completely extraordinary, which it was.

As a layman, I would now say I think we have it.

NARRATOR: What the scientists at CERN had discovered

was a tiny bit of matter that some call the God particle.

MAN: Scientists around the world

celebrated the discovery of the God particle

as a milestone in human knowledge

and thought that it's gonna open up

new layers of our understanding of reality.

NARRATOR: But just what is the so-called God particle,

and what is it telling us about the universe?

Known in the scientific community as the Higgs boson,

the particle was first theorized

by physicist Peter Higgs in 1964.

Its discovery confirms the existence of an invisible force

throughout the universe known as the Higgs field.

Scientists believe

when particles interact with this field,

they acquire mass, which slows them down

and allows them to form matter such as planets and stars.

A image that's often used

is Ping-Pong balls moving through sand or sugar.

Sometimes they're pushed down real deep.

Sometimes they're on top of the sand.

If you're on top, you move around quickly.

If you're deep in, you move slowly.

And that interaction with this other Higgs particle

is what gives other particles their mass.

You really can't overemphasize the importance

of finally saying there is a Higgs particle

and that we really are on the right track.

BRANDENBURG: There's great excitement

in the scientific community,

because the Higgs field permeates all of space-time.

It's possible, theoretically,

to effectively switch off the mass of particles

and achieve near-light speed very easily.

This could open up not only the planets,

but the stars to human exploration.

MAN: Whether it's through science, religion, philosophy,

or the ancient astronaut theory, the fact is,

we are all seeking answers to the same questions:

"Who are we? Where do we come from?"

And ultimately, "Where are we going?"

And so we celebrate a discovery like the Higgs boson,

or "God particle," because it brings us that much closer

to answering the questions that have fascinated humanity

for thousands of years.

NARRATOR: Scientists believe

that the discovery of this tiny particle

could represent a quantum leap

in our understanding of the universe.

Some have even proposed

that it could open the door to antigravity technology,

travel at the speed of light, and the creation of wormholes.

However, ancient astronaut theorists propose

that the God particle is not a new discovery,

but rather a rediscovery.

Chandigarh, India.

This thriving city at the foot of the towering Himalayas

is the capital of India's Punjab state.

It was in this region of northwest India

that scholars believe

a series of religious texts called the Vedas

were compiled from oral stories

that had been passed down for centuries.

MAN: The Vedas, according to the Indian tradition itself,

were put together into the final form about 5,000 years ago,

but these hymns had been circulating

in the Indian region for a long time.

We do know that not a single letter

of the 4 Vedas has changed,

unlike any other texts in the world,

so there was a belief

that the text of the Vedas should not be tampered with,

because they represent the entire cosmos.

YOUNG: In the Hindu lore,

the Vedas are not of earthly origin.

They are from mysterious sources,

and they are from before time.

They are from before human history

and are said to be from before even the gods.

Major figures in modern science

were ardent students of the Vedas.

Bohr and Schrodinger read arduously.

Oppenheimer could read it in Sanskrit.

Even Einstein and Tesla were known to have read it.

It had a profound influence on modern thinking.

NARRATOR: Inside these ancient tomes

are Hinduism's first stories of creation.

In one Vedic text called the Rig-Veda,

creation was said to have begun suddenly and explosively

from an infinitesimal point of pure energy.

TSOUKALOS: It describes this strange cosmic egg

that begins as a single concentrated point,

and everything expanded from this single concentrated point

to form the universe.

Now, if you look at this from a modern perspective,

this actually reflects modern science's big bang theory,

where the universe began as a singularity

and expanded to form the universe as we know it today.

To me, the similarities are astounding.

MAN: It's not like this idea was just banging around

for anybody to see.

It was a concept

that our scientists didn't start to embrace

until the 20th century,

and yet it was already there in these texts

that are at least 3,000 years old,

if not much older.

KAK: What is remarkable in the Vedas

is that they were able to come to an understanding

which is very similar to the understanding

that modern science has reached

through the intuitions of our great contemporary scientists.

NARRATOR: Is it really possible

that the Hindu creation story from the Rig-Veda

is evidence that people living thousands of years ago

may have had knowledge of the precise scientific process

involved in the creation of the universe...

A process modern scientists

are only just beginning to understand?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and believe that further proof can be found

in another early creation story:

The Hebrew Bible's book of Genesis.

BRANDENBURG: One of the first phrases in Genesis:

"Let there be light."

And this is like the moment of the big bang.

The whole universe began effectively as light, as energy.

We're speaking of moments of existence

that humans would experience just as a great flash of light.

And in that sense,

the story of Genesis in the Bible and science converge.

YOUNG: We have in this verse

the description of the very first light,

the light out of which all things came,

the light which led, finally, to matter,

to things of substance, to the universe itself.

In current scientific theory,

fractions of a second after the big bang,

the Higgs field transformed

what had been particles of light into mass,

matter into creation itself.

We have very strong parallels with the Scriptures...

First light and then matter.

NARRATOR: Similar descriptions of the universe

beginning from a single point of light

can be found in cultures throughout the ancient world,

from Egypt to China and to the American Southwest.

YOUNG: In the Egyptian creation narrative,

the very first god was Atum.

He emerged from the darkness to create Egyptian civilization.

The Sumerian, the Egyptian, the Norse,

something emerges out of darkness.

Order emerges out of chaos.

Where there was no form, form begins.

There is something about these stories

that is beyond any one of them

that seems to allude to a greater reality.

NARRATOR: But how is it

that the ancient world's most sacred texts

all describe creation in much the same way

as our current scientific theory?

And where did our ancestors get

this seemingly advanced understanding

of the origins of the universe?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

the answers may lie in the stories of the man

who compiled the Vedic texts in written form,

a mysterious sage named Veda Vyasa.

In the Hindu mythologies,

Vyasa is believed to be

a reincarnation of the god Vishnu,

and that Vishnu specifically took on a human embodiment

to be able to write down these classic texts.

This sage Vyasa, who is the author of the Vedas,

was said to be an immortal

and, ultimately, one of the gods himself.

TSOUKALOS: Some have suggested that Vyasa came to Earth

to record and impart this Vedic knowledge to mankind.

Now, could it be possible

that he was in fact an extraterrestrial

who came here with the direct mission

to bring knowledge to mankind

and guide them in their understanding

of science and physics?

NARRATOR: Could Veda Vyasa

really have been an extraterrestrial?

And might he have educated mankind

about the workings of the universe thousands of years

before the Large Hadron Collider was ever even constructed?

But if so, why?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

further evidence can be found

in the stories of a Greek scientist

2,500 years ahead of his time.

The Thracian coast, Greece.

At the northern end of the Aegean Sea

lie the ruins of an ancient metropolis.

2,500 years ago,

Abdera was a thriving seaport and trading center.

It was a wealthy hub of commerce between empires

and the home of one of history's greatest thinkers: Democritus.

Democritus was a Greek philosopher

in the fifth century before the Common Era.

He was not just a philosopher, but a scientific theorist.

In fact, his great gifts have led him to be revered

as the father of modern science.

NARRATOR: Democritus was born to a wealthy family

and educated by Persian Magi,

learned priests who were said to control the Fates.

It was believed that he was trained by the Magi,

these priests of the east,

and that he also traveled to Egypt and to Babylon

and studied with the secret masters

who had these ancient wisdom teachings

hidden in their lineage.

MAN: Democritus traveled quite a bit

and, through his travels,

learned quite a lot traveling east through...

In what we call the Ancient Near East

studying with the Magi

and studying with Chaldeans

who were known for their magical, mysterious learnings

and their magical, mysterious knowledge as well.

NARRATOR: Through his travels and his interactions

with people said to have mysterious knowledge,

the young philosopher and mathematician

came up with a radical theory

concerning all matter in the universe.

Democritus theorized that everything...

People, plants, stone and sun...

Were made of the same stuff:

Tiny particles he called "atomos."

WOMAN: He developed an early version of the atomic theory.

It is an early theory of everything in the world

being made up of these very, very small,

invisible particles which Democritus then called atoms.

CARGILL: Democritus argued

that there's a fundamental building block,

even though we couldn't see them.

That was the theory...

The philosophical theory that was in Ancient Greece.

This is long before science.

DENNIN: When Democritus was talking about atoms,

it's amazing of how close he got to what we really know.

What he was motivated by was the idea

that if you cut something up,

the pieces still have the same properties.

And so he just did the thought experiment,

"Well, if I keep cutting it smaller,"

"then eventually I'll have the smallest possible piece,"

"and that's the atom,"

"and that's what gives it its properties."

That's basically our picture of matter now.

That smallest piece is the protons, neutrons,

and the electron that make up the atom.

NARRATOR: What Democritus articulated 2,500 years ago

is remarkably similar to today's standard model of physics...

The basis of our search for the Higgs boson,

or God particle.

But how could Democritus have known about the atom

and the forces that govern it?

Could it be that Democritus had access to advanced

and perhaps even extraterrestrial information

about the quantum realm?

Some ancient astronaut theorists believe

that the answer may lie in an even more radical suggestion.

Democritus made about the cosmos.

TSOUKALOS: In his writings,

Democritus proposed that there are many worlds

and that these worlds even sustained life.

Now, could it be that by "other worlds,"

he was maybe even referring to parallel universes?

DENNIN: As we fast forward from Democritus

to the more current era,

where the idea of parallel universes have really taken off

is the multi-universe view,

where all possible universes has occurred.

This is very similar to Democritus's idea

of the making all possible universes,

but now they're very much next to each other,

parallel in space, as well as occurring in time.

NARRATOR: Some cosmologists today

believe our universe is one of many

and that the God particle could lead us

to discovering these other universes.

Is it possible that Democritus had knowledge of this

2,500 years ago?

And might that information have come to him

not only from a different world,

but perhaps a different universe?

MAN: Democritus claimed to communicate with

what he thought were parallel worlds.

He sometimes would exercise his energy

by going into places of the dead

and would receive what he thought were voices

and information which would predict the future.

TSOUKALOS: Some accounts of Democritus

describe him as having access to magical powers

with which he could control the weather

and predict natural disasters.

He also allegedly communicated with

what he referred to as other worlds,

and he described images and voices that came to him

giving him all sorts of information.

WILCOCK: Is it possible that the priests of the Magi,

the priests of the Egyptian mystery schools,

and the priests of Babylon

taught him some form of ancient practice

that allows the human body to become an instrument

to connect directly on a telepathic level

with extraterrestrial beings?

BAR TZADOK: The more that we draw forth in science,

we're going to discover the truths of the past

that have long been hidden from us.

Yes, mankind has been directed from the beginning.

NARRATOR: But did Democritus truly understand atomic theory

and the concept of multiple universes

all the way back in the fifth century BC?

Or is it possible,

as some ancient astronaut theorists suggest,

that he was simply documenting information passed on to him

by more advanced beings...

Clues about our universe

deliberately left for us to discover over time?

Perhaps the answer can be found

by looking at the discovery of the God particle

and its connection to the Mayan calendar.

Palenque, Mexico.

These majestic stone ruins are all that remain

of the once powerful Mayan city.

With its towering stone pyramids and ornate plazas,

Palenque reveals the true sophistication

of the Mayan civilization.

In terms of scientific and artistic achievements,

the Maya were among the world's best ancient civilizations.

Their advancements in math, engineering,

astronomy, geometry were unparalleled

in the entire Americas.

NARRATOR: It was in this ancient Mayan city

that researchers have unearthed

one of the best examples of a remarkable calendar

that tracked not only days and months,

but also ages spanning thousands of years.

BARNHART: The Maya were very,

very intent on recording the passage of time,

so much so that early scholars called the entire culture

esoteric time worshipers.

They had a number of calendrical cycles.

One of the last ones they made we call the Long Count.

To the Western mind,

you could look at it as the odometer on your car.

It clicks through time,

and scholars have a difference of opinion

whether it is a cycle that will reset itself

or whether it is a system

that can go backwards and forwards into perpetuity.

HENRY: The Mayans were obsessed with the idea

of time cycles and worlds.

They believed that we had existed in 3 previous worlds

and that they could forecast or predict

the emergence of a new world.

That was the purpose of the Mayan calendar,

was to pinpoint a specific date and time

when one world would end and a new world would begin.

NARRATOR: The Mayan calendar last turned

on December 21, 2012.

Thousands of people from around the world

descended on Mayan sites to mark the event.

Some, however, saw dire omens in the occasion.

The Mayan prediction of the end of the world in December 2012

caused a firestorm of prophecy watchers

and people believing that it was actually doomsday.

But as we know now,

nothing of that nature actually happened at that time.

NARRATOR: If it wasn't a doomsday clock,

as many believed,

then just what was this ancient calendar predicting?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

it may have in fact been counting down,

not to the end of the world,

but to the dawn of a new era in human history.

The Mayans never said it was gonna be doomsday.

They simply said it would be a new moment of creation.

Maybe the Mayan calendar predicted

a monumental leap forward,

a transition that would lead us into a whole new era

of scientific understanding and possibility.

CHILDRESS: What did happen was, we discovered the God particle,

the Higgs boson.

So perhaps what the Mayan calendar was trying to predict

was not some terrible catastrophe,

but our own very important discovery of the God particle

and how we can use this

to understand our place in the universe.

NARRATOR: If the Maya did indeed predict

the discovery of the God particle,

did they also leave a clue

as to where this knowledge will take us?

Some ancient astronaut theorists believe

the answer may be found 480 miles north

on carved blocks of hard volcanic andesite

at another Mayan archaeological site in Izapa.

On Stela 5, there is a depiction of a mythological tree

that the Maya believed connected the cosmos and the earth.

For the Maya,

the world tree bridged the seen and the unseen,

the celestial and the earthly.

The Mayans believed the tree exuded

a kind of syrup or sap called the itz.

It had qualities that allowed portals to open

to make contact with unseen dimensions.

It was the key, if you will, to other worlds.

MARTELL: The Mayans talked about this type of cosmic ooze

that they thought literally emanated from the world tree.

The itz actually opened up portals to other worlds.

Maybe they're talking about some type of advanced energy

that they didn't directly have access to,

but had the understandings and teachings

possibly taught to them by extraterrestrials.

When I looked at the symbolism of the sacred tree,

I got to thinking,

what if that sap is the Higgs boson,

the God particle?

And you have scientists saying

that it could potentially lead to time travel

and our ability to create tiny wormholes.

Now, is it possible

that we can use the discovery of the God particle

and the Higgs boson

to understand our place in the universe

and even to teleport

and travel through time and space?

NARRATOR: Was the Mayan calendar devised

to predict the discovery of the God particle?

And if so, could this mean that we are getting closer

to a reconnection with alien beings

that visited Earth long ago?

Some ancient astronaut theorists believe

another clue may be found

just outside the entrance to the Large Hadron Collider

with the statue of Shiva.

Geneva, Switzerland.

Outside the headquarters of CERN's Large Hadron Collider

is a 12-foot statue of the Shiva Nataraja,

or the Dancing Shiva,

one of Hinduism's most powerful gods.

YOUNG: Lord Shiva is one of the 3 great gods

of the Hindu teaching.

He is the god of destruction.

His job is to destroy, but it is in order to renew.

He destroys and creates.

His energy, the dance...

He's considered the lord of the dance, a cosmic dance,

and it is the dance of destruction and re-creation.

MAN: God Shiva is a complex character.

It's very difficult to understand Shiva

in one, uh, in one word,

because he is the god of procreation,

and he is also the god of destruction.

He is also the god that destroys everything,

because everything that is created must come to an end.

NARRATOR: According to Hindu mythology,

Shiva is the god who will one day destroy the universe

to make way for a new one.

YOUNG: Shiva's cosmic dance is not seen as a negative,

even though it is greatly destructive.

It is destroying in order for something new to be created.

So it is an essential part of the process of life

that things are cleared away so new things,

new possibilities, better possibilities can emerge.

NARRATOR: But could the various attributes

associated with this Hindu god

be connected to a recent discovery

made at the Large Hadron Collider

about how our universe could suddenly

and catastrophically end?

FRISBEE: One of the intriguing outcomes

of the Higgs boson mass measurement

is the realization that the Higgs boson

and the top quark

may put us right on the ragged edge

of an instability condition in the universe.

The universe can exist in several different states.

Water.

It can exist as steam,

as liquid water, frozen ice.

If the universe changes state,

it would produce bubbles of space-time

expanding at the speed of light

that could destroy everything, all normal matter,

all everything in the universe as we know it.

Some people are seeing theories that say

there's gonna be expanding bubbles of nothingness

that will create new... Whole new universes.

And, in a sense,

we know that the universe has to be unstable

because it made the big bang in the first place.

NARRATOR: Could Shiva not only be a mythological deity

that represents the ancient Hindus' understanding

of the universe,

but might he also have been an otherworldly being

who passed on information to our ancestors

that we are only now rediscovering?

Maybe the great god Shiva, the destroyer,

was actually trying to communicate in ancient times

things that we're learning today

about breaking things down to the finest particles

and understanding that these are how we understand

the basis of life at a subatomic level.

TSOUKALOS: In Hindu tradition,

Shiva was often portrayed as blue-skinned

with a third eye in the middle of his forehead.

And if you look at the different depictions of Shiva's dance,

you see that he is almost always surrounded

by some type of a circular structure with flames.

MARTELL: We see parallels to technology

where he's always depicted in this circle

when he's doing his cosmic dance.

It seems very similar to what we see at the hadron accelerator

in this large circular particle accelerator.

Maybe there's some tie-in

between Shiva being depicted in a circular device

and the way we're smashing particles now

in the hadron accelerator.

TSOUKALOS: Now, what did our human ancestor artists

try to depict here?

Do the accounts of his cosmic dance

refer to some type of misunderstood technology

very much similar to the Large Hadron Collider?

YOUNG: In the Catholic Mass,

there is a ceremonial artifact called a monstrance.

If you look at this image, if you look at this item,

it has a burst of light

very similar to the pattern of Shiva's light,

this dance of creation.

Some say this shape can be seen in the Hadron Collider at CERN.

NARRATOR: Does this suggest that the invention of tools,

like the Large Hadron Collider,

are happening as part of a plan?

Did celestial beings who came to Earth in the distant past

give early humans insights into the origin of existence?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

the answers may be found

not in what CERN has already uncovered,

but in discoveries yet to come.

CERN headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland.

The Large Hadron Collider was heralded as a monumental success

when it helped to discover the Higgs boson,

or God particle, in 2012,

but that was only the beginning.

Since then, researchers have embarked on a multi-year project

to upgrade what is already the most powerful machine on Earth

by retrofitting it with bigger, better,

and more efficient systems.

When the Large Hadron Collider is activated again in 2015,

it will wield at least double the power it did in 2012,

and could boast even 10 times more

by the end of the decade.

FRISBEE: And when you look at the size of the detectors

at the Large Hadron Collider,

you realize that we really are pushing

the limits of technology.

The Large Hadron Collider

is something like 7 times more powerful

than anything else that's existed before.

We'll be even able to get even closer to conditions in time,

even closer to the beginning of the big bang.

SPIROPULU: The work that is happening right now

during the LHC shutdown

is to prepare the detectors

and the experiments for the big energy step.

We are going into even more higher energy,

and that means that we are probing deeper,

and we can be just around the corner

of discovering something

which is completely blowing our minds.

BRANDENBURG: The human race

is gonna be focusing more energy in a small area

than we've ever done before,

so we're looking for a whole new phenomenon.

NARRATOR: The scientists at CERN hope

that by increasing the power of the Large Hadron Collider,

they will not only be able to learn more

about the God particle,

but also uncover other,

perhaps even more profound secrets of the universe.

But some scientists have voiced concerns

that the Large Hadron Collider could create a black hole

that would swallow up the earth,

set off a massive nuclear explosion,

or even form a vacuum bubble

that could tip the balance of the entire universe.

Perhaps this is a little hubris...

And we all know what happens

when physicists get full of hubris...

But there's always a little bit of fear

when you're pushing back the frontiers of science.

It's part of the frontier spirit.

SPIROPULU: We have to admit

that we don't know how the universe started.

And as we go into higher and higher energies,

we don't know what we are going to find,

because this physics at these levels is an experimental,

completely experimental, uh, science.

We don't have the complete understanding

and description of the universe

that can create this anxiety and fear

that we might create something that will end the universe.

When we look at the experiments that have been conducted at CERN

with the Large Hadron Collider,

it may be that humanity is taking its first baby steps

towards the actual construction of the universe.

We're manipulating matter at the subatomic level,

and we are literally harnessing

the forces of creation themselves.

BRANDENBURG: The amount of the universe

that we see and know

that is part of the standard model of physics

is only, like, 4% of the mass of the universe.

We're going into vast unknown territory.

We're going to be witnessing events

that no human being has ever witnessed before

and energy density scales

no human being has ever been able to create before,

so it's very exciting.

Who knows what we'll find?

NARRATOR: By wielding the incredible power

of the Large Hadron Collider,

could we one day re-create the big bang

to form an entirely new universe,

and at the same time, destroy our own?

Or might we instead be reaching the threshold

of a new age for mankind?

If ancient astronauts came to our planet

hundreds of centuries ago,

perhaps they deliberately planted the seeds of knowledge

that would eventually lead us to where we are today.

Perhaps finding the so-called God particle

will allow us to finally answer

mankind's most persistent questions:

"Who are we? Where did we come from?"

And the most persistent of all:

"Are we alone?"